Black Lives Matter has been nominated for a 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.

Norwegian member of parliament Petter Eide said he nominated the organization because it is "bringing forward a new consciousness and awareness about racial justice."

"To carry forward a movement of racial justice and to spread that to other countries is very, very important. Black Lives Matter is the strongest force today doing this, not only in the U.S. but also in Europe and in Asia," Eide told USA TODAY Saturday.

Eide said Black Lives Matter carries forward the legacy of earlier racial justice movements, such as the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela won the prize in 1960 and 1993, respectively, for their campaigns against racial discrimination in South Africa.

"For the Nobel Prize Committee, this is not unusual to link a fight for (racial) justice, to link that with peace," Eide said. "There will be no peace without justice."

Eide said the nomination "is not a comment on domestic American politics." Eide said he woke up Saturday morning to an email inbox "full of very angry Americans," who wrote to Eide saying Black Lives Matter is not a peaceful organization. Edie said he was "prepared for that critique."

"If we go 50 years back, those arguments also came up when Dr. Martin Luther King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 – exactly the same arguments. And when twice the (African National Congress) leaders of South Africa received the Nobel Peace Prize, there were also incidents of violence. But you can’t use that as a counter-argument to say Mandela was not working for justice or peace," he said.

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Hauck G. (Jan. 30, 2021) "Black Lives Matter nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for carrying forward 'a movement of racial justice". USAToday. Article here: https://tinyurl.com/y48htxkm